Insider X (11 page)

Marks had his two languages, American and Grunt, while Lip’s job was knowing the rest.  That would be every friggin’ computer language there was, plus about a dozen real languages, like Russian, French, Arabic…  Marks was starting to lose count with how many languages Lip knew.  Man kept adding them.  Estonian?  Lip said he learned that one while taking a dump.

Right now, to give the play-by-play, Johnny Two-cakes was going to a ‘low latency anonymity network’.  Big technical term for geeks.  It basically meant, in a moment or so, that everything that Johnny Two-cakes would be doing would be masked.  He could surf, go to different sites, log in as various users, or do whatever the hell he wanted, all without the site he was visiting knowing where he was really coming from.  The site he was at, which would be tracking him with cookies, his IP address, and/or several other methods, would think he was coming from San Francisco, New York City, Sandpoint, Idaho or hundreds of other possibles.  It was like a frickin’ blender.  It made Johnny Two-cakes into a man with a thousand faces.

“Okay,” Johnny Two-cakes said.  “I’m ready.  Let me show the first site.”

He plugged in the address:
 www.MSN.com

“You’ve got to be kidding?” Marks said.  “All that to go there?”

“Give me a moment,” Johnny Two-cakes said, clicking on an article.  “Okay, here’s one.”

An article came on the screen.

Texas Senate Passes Abortion Restrictions

Mei nodded.  “They are sneaky aren’t they?”

Lip and Marks looked at each other.

“Are we missing something?” Lip said.

“Here,” Johnny Two-cakes said.  “Start reading.”

Johnny Two-cakes had opened the ‘comments’ box.  The article, which had been posted 10 hours ago, had 1,131 comments.

“What’s the gag?” Lip said.

“No gag,” Johnny Two-cakes said.  “Read.”

17

Facility 67096

HUILIANG’S CHEERFUL PERSONALITY was on full display as she played the role of a tour guide.  Walking the grounds, Na couldn’t help but wondering: if Huiliang was the tour guide, what did that make her?  A new employee?  Or was she a prisoner?

This place was like a puzzle.  So hard to figure out.  They were obviously being observed in some manner.  Huiliang had let her know with that slight nod of her head.  So Big Brother was listening (maybe watching too?).  Was that the case now?

They were walking on a pedestrian path.  As they’d passed certain places, buildings and activity centers, Huiliang had pointed out that particular building housed the gym, or that was where the pool was located.  The pool, she said, was an Olympic sized pool with diving platforms and over ten swimming lanes.

Huiliang mentioned they had swim teams, if she was interested in joining one.  All levels.  From beginner to “super expert”.  Huiliang said some of the meets were really exciting. 

“Like watching real Olympics!” Huiliang said.

The whole place—park, activity areas, buildings, pond, meandering nature trails, young men and women walking around—was like some la-la land one might find in America.  Or what Na’s mind imagined a university campus in America might look like.  She’d seen photos on the Internet, as well as American movies and TV shows that showed such incredible places.  This place reminded her, in some ways, of those settings.

There were people her age (or near her age) everywhere, and from what she could see, only people around her age.  An equal mix it seemed of guys and girls, which in itself was rather unusual.  Usually the gender mix was weighted towards boys, no matter where she went in the city or province.

That was the case for most provinces in China.  The ‘family planning policy’, which limited married couples to having only one baby, had changed things.  Ever since it was enforced several decades ago, parents had found ways to make sure that one baby was a boy.  Those methods, of course, were very sad.  The State only took thirty-five years to realize this.  To realize that their attempt at population control was causing a major imbalance in gender distribution.  They said it was 110 boys for every 100 girls.  Which really meant the ratio was much worse.

The State never gave the real numbers.  They always fudged them to make things seem better.  They did this with everything.  With employment figures, health scares, air quality, anything they were talking about.  So if they were admitting that the ratio was 110 to 100, which was already bad enough, then it had to be much much worse.

Na figured it was a scary number.  A sad number.  Just her own observations could tell her this.  When she was out in large crowds, she sometimes did her own counts.  There were always more boys than girls, usually to a 2 to 1 degree, particularly when she focused on just those under thirty-five.

She should be happy with that ratio, of course.  Because it meant more boys for her.  Lots of boyfriends!

>(._x)<

Not even funny. 

Bad, bad joke.

She never saw it that way.  Never ever.  She saw enough.  She couldn’t help it.

On the pretty days, when the sun shone and the air quality was okay, she’d see the new mothers out pushing their strollers.  In those strollers would be a boy, almost every time.  Hardly any girls, it seemed.  Because with those with means the ratio had to be even worse.  They could afford the tests during pregnancy.

So it was boy after boy after boy in the strollers.  Some of those mothers looked so sad.  Na could feel their pain, sometimes.  Horrible stuff.  Horrible horrible.

But not here.

Here it was la-la land. 

An equal mix.  Lots of girls.  Lots of sisters!  She heard laughter from some as they walked and talked with their friends.  They looked happy, relaxed, well dressed, and well fed.

So like an American university.  But also different.  For one, there was that wall.  She kept getting glimpses of it, seeing it in-between buildings, or in the distance, over the pond, at areas where the trees parted and afforded views.

The wall in those areas was a big gray expanse.  It was a big question mark for Na.  Was that wall to keep prying eyes out?  Or was that to keep everyone inside from getting out?

The young men and women walking around didn’t look or act like prisoners.  But they certainly didn’t look like college students either.  None of them were carrying books, and none of them had on backpacks.  Very few were dressed like she’d expect students to be dressed—in jeans and tee shirts.  Instead, most of them were dressed like Huiliang and herself, wearing stylish and expensive-looking clothes.  The shoes on the girls, the hairstyles… it was a place where money was evident.  Everyone here could afford to dress well.

It was like Na was seeing how the upper crust lived.  The elite.  Was that what this was?  If so, she so didn’t belong here.  While Na had a nice wardrobe, she somewhat doubted any of these guys or girls had obtained their clothes by stealing them or foraging in eviction piles.

Huiliang, she noticed, had stopped her fun commentary.  She was Miss Chatterbox for a little while, talking almost nonstop.  Not now, though.

She’d gone quiet.

And that wasn’t all of it.

Na noticed it instantly.  It was hard to explain; Na didn’t just observe surface stuff, like body language.  She had another way she read people.  It was a sense of hers she didn’t quite understand, but that was a part of her.  Some extension of her sight.

It was almost like she could see, or sense, or “feel” the emotional state of others—actually feel their feelings.  Like there were these invisible waves that only she could see.  She saw these on new mothers sometimes.  Or rather, she “felt” them.  It was how she sensed whether they were happy or sad.  And it was the same with others.  Na could sometimes feel the waves.  Feel their movement, their energy… their subtle color.

Movement.  Color.  Those descriptors weren’t quite adequate either, but it was the only way she could think to try and describe it.  Describe how the wave looked in her mind.  How it felt.  How if she closed her eyes the color would appear to her.  Warm or cold or somewhere in-between.

The color was always telling.  Blue was calm.  Red meant something was wrong.  Depending on its hue it might mean just anxiety or it might mean something more intense, like anger or pain.  There were other colors or gradients, which could be harder to read.  Some of those colors seemed connected with stuff like lying.

It wasn’t always the case, but usually when someone wasn’t telling the truth, she would see (or feel) two distinct bands of color.  Not one color, but two.  Like one was on top of the other.  Hiding it.

Yes… crazy!

It all seemed crazy.  These words: waves, color, gradients, movement… it was all crazy.  Had to be.  No one she knew ever talked of such things.  And she hadn’t found this kind of stuff talked about on the Web.  Well, that wasn’t quite true.  She had found some things that were similar.  “Empaths” was a word one website used.  How there were some people… and not just people either, but also animals and insects that were very adept at sensing the emotions of others.  Feeling empathy.  Experiencing the emotions of others like they were happening to them.  Dogs were mentioned.  Even bees.

So she was a dog.  Or she was a bee.

Maybe in another life?

:P

Crazy!

Crazy-crazy stuff to talk about.  So she never did.  It was probably just all in her head.  Something she somehow imagined.  Something that felt real to her.

And it did feel real.  In her mind, the movement of these waves, these waves of color, how they formed and “amassed” around someone told her things.  Gave her insight into that person’s mind.

Real?

She hoped it was.  Because if not, then she was truly crazy. 

Wait a second!  Who was she kidding?!  Of course she was crazy.  If not this stuff, then all the other stuff in her head made her nutso.

Woof woof!  Meooww!

Dogs and cats and plenty of crazy.  That was Na.  Na the crazy girl.  And the crazy girl was seeing these waves on Huiliang now.  They were hues of warm—a blend of orange to red—and there was a disruption in how they moved.  Smooth, then roiling.

Huiliang’s cheerful demeanor was gone.  She still had a smile on her face, but it didn’t seem right—it seemed forced.  Even without seeing the waves, Na would probably be able to tell by Huiliang’s body language that she was troubled.  There was no bounciness in her walk now.  No joy radiating from her.

It was so odd.

What had happened?  Na didn’t see anyone nearby.  And they hadn’t just passed someone that might trigger such a change.

Was it this place then?

They were passing another building.  It was more imposing than the others.  Much larger too.  It was done in a grandiose style with big steps and large columns in front.

Huiliang stopped walking.  Na stopped too.  She looked at Huiliang curiously.

Huiliang took a breath before speaking.  “You’ll need to report for duty here,” she said.  “This is Duty Building.”  Her voice seemed small.  “Inside Duty Building is a place where we work.  Some call it ‘Center’.  But not many—that isn’t a term we use.  We just say Duty Building.  We must report here at zero three hundred.  Three AM.  You understand military time?”

Na nodded.  3 AM.  Just like her job now.

“That is the same time I had at the den,” Na said.  “But why that time?  Why so early?  I never understood those hours.”

Huiliang looked around nervously.  There was no one near them, but Huiliang seemed to want to make sure they were alone.

“Because we are in the ‘Americas Division’,” Huiliang said.  “Others here work at different times.  It depends what your duty is.”

Na still didn’t understand.

Huiliang seemed to notice her confusion.  “Three AM is noon time in California.  Three PM, when our duty ends, is midnight in California.  That is why we have those hours.”

Ah ha!

Made sense now.  Na mentally kicked herself for not figuring that out.  So simple. 
Duh.
  Now she felt dumb.

Of course those hours.  She thought about the den, and what she did there: her posts and comments on those various websites.  She was posing as Americans.  The ‘time stamps’ of her posts and comments needed to be in synch with the times that Americans would usually be awake.  They would appear legitimate that way.  Someone leaving a post at odd hours, like 2 or 4 AM, might look weird.  Might look fake.

“Do others work at different times,” Na said, “because they are in divisions for other countries?”

Huiliang gave an almost imperceptible nod to indicate ‘yes’.  She seemed extremely uncomfortable talking about this.  So Big Brother must still be watching them somehow.

Huiliang didn’t speak again until they walked away, and were well past the imposing building with the steps.  “There are many rules here,” Huiliang said, “like how we are speaking now, in our native language.  This is only allowed off duty.  Never during duty.  On duty we must speak only English.”

Na nodded.  Just like the job she’d come from.  She wondered if her duty would be doing the same thing she’d been doing there?  Shotgun specials?

“One rule, I should tell you now,” Huiliang said, as if she just read her mind, “is questions are dangerous.  I wouldn’t recommend asking them.  Just listen.  You’ll be told everything you need to know during orientation tomorrow.  The rest you’ll figure out by yourself.  This place is very special.  You’ll see.  It takes some adjustment, at first.  Yes, we are watched.  But it is for our own good… our own protection.  What we do here is of great service to our country.  We are lucky to be selected, to get this opportunity to do our duty.”

Curious waves now.  Hard to read.  Almost two distinct colors, but not quite.  Might mean there was some dissembling going on… some form of hiding.  If so, what was truth?  And what was lying?

Na was more than curious now.

>^,,^<

Oh no.

Kitty Kat peeked her head up.  That could only mean one thing.

No, Kitty Kat, not now.  Shhhh!

But it was no use.  Kitty Kat did her thing.  She started meowing.

Okay, okay, I hear you.

Na couldn’t just let what Huiliang said go without one more question, even if questions were supposedly dangerous.

“This duty,” Na said, “do I have a choice?  What if I decide I don’t want to be here?  What if I want to leave?”

Huiliang sucked in a breath and her face went ashen.  She looked around again.

“Please,” Huiliang said, “I am just to give you tour.  Let us walk and enjoy this time.”  She looked at Na, her eyes almost pleading.

Na felt her face flush. 
Bad Kitty Kat.  You should not have asked.

“I am sorry,” Na said.  She suddenly felt ashamed.  Huiliang was trying to help her, and instead of being thankful for her advice, Na had ignored Huiliang’s warning.  Had she just endangered Huiliang with her question?  Na didn’t know.  But she knew one thing.  Huiliang’s response had answered her question.  Make that two questions.